Triumph Question

[Pa]

1968 Triumph Tiger, 12 volt system. Is it ok to use a pair of 6 volt coils with this 12 volt system, if one is to jump coils ? The cons ? The pro's ? Thanks in advance for any help, Pa

Can't answer directly, but this is the best place to ask:
http://www.britbike.com/ubb/noncgi/ulti ... /f/11.html

Hi Pa,

If it's an ignition like a H-D with a wasted spark, 2 cams for one set of points, it will probably work.

If one cam and 2 sets of points, 1 feed to both coils but 2 wires out to the points, it won't work...

Patrick

[Pa]

Thanks Panic and Patrick. The bike was purchased as is and it does run dual points with two separate 6 volt coils. No matter what we did with the two coils, we ended up with one dead cylinder. Since I asked this question, we installed a pair of 12 volt coils and electonic ignition. She is firing on both cylinders now. Pa

The BMWs of the 60 , 70 , 80 years are 12 Volts and run with two 6 Volts coils

While touring in Mexico back in the '60's, I forgot to turn off my ignition when we stopped at a cantina in the desert. This fried one set of points, condenser, and coil. I one lunged into Mexicali and all I could find was a Yamaha dealer. Well as it turned out Yamaha was producing a 650 Vertical Twin that bore a strange resemblance to a '50's Limey bike. I bought one set of points, condenser, and coil, and it all bolted in to my '67 Booneville. Bike fired right up and ran great. When I got back to LA I pulled the plugs and found that the Yammy side was burning much better than the Lucas side. So I was off to the local Yamaha dealer to buy the other set.

Back when Gordon Jennings was at CYCLE they did a real eye opener of a coil test, and found that almost all foreign bikes were seriously under-coiled, and had borderline sparks which were responsible for much of their reputation for being hard to start etc. They did some miracle cures putting K-Mart Chevy coils on Ducatis, etc only to find out that in many cases they overloaded the electrical system. I built up a few coil systems for Vincents using the same coil, with greatly improved starting and low speed tractability.

BTW, there is often very little difference between a 6V and 12V coil. All coils are really 6v, and for 12 (or 24) they just add a ballast resistor to limit the current. GM traditionally used an external resistor, and Ford built them into the coil. So if you are stuck for a 6V coil, any 12V coil intended for use with an external resistor will work fine,